--- title: Ebola Virus Mutated to Better Infect Human Cells description: Scientists have identified a mutation in the Ebola virus that may be the reason the virus infected so many people canonical: https://time.com/4556550/ebola-mutation-outbreak/ author: Alexandra Sifferlin article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-11-03T16:31:31.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T01:36:30.205Z article:section: Health og:title: How Ebola Got So Deadly og:description: Scientists have identified a mutation in the Ebola virus that may be the reason the virus infected so many people og:url: https://time.com/4556550/ebola-mutation-outbreak/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt015090a52f7f4655/6988acdbe20a8712b9a93137/ebaolsla-dk.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 5074 og:image:height: 2854 og:image:alt: Ebola og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: How Ebola Got So Deadly twitter:description: Scientists have identified a mutation in the Ebola virus that may be the reason the virus infected so many people twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt015090a52f7f4655/6988acdbe20a8712b9a93137/ebaolsla-dk.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # How Ebola Got So Deadly > Sponsored content. 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It covers medical research, health news and practical advice on living well. #### Where can I get reliable health news by email? Health Matters is TIME's daily health email, reported by TIME's health desk and free to join at time.com/newsletters. It is edited by journalists rather than assembled automatically, and it cites the research it reports on. #### Is Health Matters free? Yes. Health Matters is a free daily newsletter from TIME, available at time.com/newsletters. #### Who reads TIME's Health Matters newsletter? Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators. by [Alexandra Sifferlin](https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/) ## Alexandra Sifferlin Nov 3, 2016 4:31 PM UTC  This colorized transmission electron micrograph (TEM) revealed some of the ultrastructural morphology displayed by an Ebola virus virion. Ebola hemorrhagic fever (Ebola HF) is a severe, often-fatal disease in humans and nonhuman primates (monkeys, gorillas, and chimpanzees) that has appeared sporadically since its initial recognition in 1976\. The disease is caused by infection with Ebola virus, named after a river in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (formerly Zaire) in Africa, where it was first recognized. The virus is one of two members of a family of RNA viruses called the Filoviridae. There are four identified subtypes of Ebola virus. Three of the four have caused disease in humans: Ebola-Zaire, Ebola-Sudan, and Ebola-Ivory Coast. The fourth, Ebola-Reston, has caused disease in nonhuman primates, but not in humans. This colorized transmission electron micrograph (TEM) revealed some of the ultrastructural morphology displayed by an Ebola virus virion. Ebola hemorrhagic fever (Ebola HF) is a severe, often-fatal disease in humans and nonhuman primates (monkeys, gorillas, and chimpanzees) that has appeared sporadically since its initial recognition in 1976\. The disease is caused by infection with Ebola virus, named after a river in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (formerly Zaire) in Africa, where it was first recognized. The virus is one of two members of a family of RNA viruses called the Filoviridae. There are four identified subtypes of Ebola virus. Three of the four have caused disease in humans: Ebola-Zaire, Ebola-Sudan, and Ebola-Ivory Coast. The fourth, Ebola-Reston, has caused disease in nonhuman primates, but not in humans. Getty Images by [Alexandra Sifferlin](https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/) ## Alexandra Sifferlin Nov 3, 2016 4:31 PM UTC The Ebola outbreak infected some 28,000 people between 2013 to 2016 and killed more than 11,000\. Now, in a [new study](http://www.umassmed.edu/news/news-archives/2016/11/umms-study-suggests-ebola-virus-mutation-caused-recent-outbreak/), scientists think they have figured out why the virus was so brutal; it mutated to better target human cells. In the report, published in the journal _Cell_, U.S. researchers looked at the genomes of over 1,400 Ebola cases from the recent outbreak and identified a mutation on an outer protein of the virus that can impact the effectiveness of the virus. The study is the first to identify this mutation. The researchers argue that a form of the virus carrying the mutation emerged during the outbreak and may be responsible for close to 90% of the cases. It may also explain why the Ebola outbreak was so much worse than previous outbreaks, which only infected hundreds of people. Scientists believe the virus somehow became more adapted to humans—perhaps through this mutation—which made it easier to transmit from animals to people. But the scientists have not confirmed how the mutation makes the Ebola virus more likely to get into human cells. “There was this belief that Ebola virus essentially never changes,” said study author Kristian G. Andersen, director of infectious disease genomics at the Scripps Translational Science Institute (STSI) [in a statement about the findings](https://www.eurekalert.org/emb%5Freleases/2016-11/sri-nts110216.php). “But this study tells us that a natural mutation in Ebola virus—which occurred during an outbreak—changed infectivity of human cells.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4556550/ebola-mutation-outbreak/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4556550/ebola-mutation-outbreak/"},"headline":"How Ebola Got So Deadly","datePublished":"2016-11-03T16:31:31.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-23T01:36:30.205Z","description":"The virus developed a dangerous mutation","url":"https://time.com/4556550/ebola-mutation-outbreak/","keywords":["ebola","Public Health","Virus","Ebola outbreak"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt015090a52f7f4655/6988acdbe20a8712b9a93137/ebaolsla-dk.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Alexandra Sifferlin","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/"}],"articleSection":"Health","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt015090a52f7f4655/6988acdbe20a8712b9a93137/ebaolsla-dk.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Ebola","caption":"Ebola","creditText":"Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/health/","name":"Health"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/ebola/","name":"ebola"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4556550/ebola-mutation-outbreak/","name":"How Ebola Got So Deadly"}}]}] ```